K's dad had been hoping to avoid coming over that day because he does not like having to be out in cold weather, even for the most brief period of time. K had been on the phone with him rolling his eyes.
"Oh, you don't feel well?" I heard him say as he looked at me knowingly. "Well, you're coming over for Thanksgiving, Dad. I'm coming to get you tomorrow."
The same occurred on Thanksgiving afternoon. "Well, Dad, I'm on my way to come get you, so have them get you your coat."
He left to pick up his dad. It seemed like he was gone for a long time, even in the event of picking up his dad to bring him over. Both of our other dinner guests were seated and I was dumping cream cheese and butter into the mashed potatoes on the stove when the phone rang.
His dad had been throwing up roughly every fifteen minutes for most of the day and was being taken to the emergency room. In other words, this time he wasn't just lying about being sick so he wouldn't have to come over. A slice of guilt pie for the both of us.
By evening he had been transfered to Mercy Hospital. Over the next two weeks we would have different kinds of scares--pushy nurses abruptly asking us about my father-in-law's DNR status, saying he had a perforated bowel. The doctor trying to push off a narrowly avoided surgery because of how weak Dad's heart was. K's dad refusing to talk about whether or not he wanted a DNR. Having to pin his good hand down while we shoved a tube down his throat to empty his digestive tract due to an obstruction, which was the final diagnosis, in his intestine.
It was a scary time, and two or three times we thought we were going to potentially say goodbye. The initial diagnosis of a perforated bowel meant certain death, and twice Dad barely escaped absolutely last-resort surgery that he very likely would not have survived. I took some pictures of K with his dad, unsure of whether I would have the opportunity to take more in the future.
For the two weeks K's dad was there we lived out of the hospital cafeteria and Kevin used up a lot of PTO.
After several days of living this hospital lifestyle, K and I spent some time wandering around the hospital corridors. Being a Catholic facility, Mercy has small a chapel. One night, K went in there with me and asked to talk about something.
We had decided (albeit rather begrudgingly on my part) earlier in the year that we would wait until 2015 to try for a baby -- try to get more student loans paid off and more money built up in our savings first. However, the situation with K's dad seemed to prod him into considering to start trying in 2014. He asked me to please pray about it and said that he would, too. We prayed together first, and then both spent some time in the chapel pondering this silently without speaking with each other.
The chapel was a dark place at night, with just some lights at the front altar to provide a glow. Some quiet hymns played from somewhere as we prayed individually, silently. I sat there, knowing the answer was yes, wondering how long it would take my husband to reach the same conclusion -- he's always been more careful, more thorough about thinking things through than I have been, which is both a blessing and a bother. ;)
After some time, he asked me how I felt about it. We both agreed that we had a calm feeling of peace. We said a prayer together promising the Lord that we would try for a baby in 2014.
And that was the start of our baby journey. My husband's dad passed the obstruction and was discharged after two weeks of being in the hospital. I started taking prenatals and gauged when I would finish my last pack of birth control.
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